This blog will be a repository of the postings of a military nature from my other blog and new ones since then, especially about the Malaysian Military in particular. Hopefully such knowledge about the hardworking men and women who tirelessly work for the security of Malaysia will be acknowledged and appreciated in this way.
"We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
- Winston Churchill

and two, the sinking of KD Sri Perak as aptly remembered by a survivor of the sinking, Pak Mail in his blog Catatan Pak Mail;

Taken from Pak Mail's blog

Until when shall these stories be kept away from the public, so much so the Armed Forces are now considered as unnecessary users of public money punching bag by some and their deeds the stuff of urban legends by others?

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The AV8 APC program is now progressing as the contract to purchase the main component of the vehicle that the APC is being developed from has been signed during the PM's visit to Turkey. So we now just have to wait for June 2011 that is the deadline for Deftech to present the APC prototype for the Government's review to actually how the APC will look like, and how much it differs from the base vehicle.

I chose to attach The Star's article here as it gives a good definition of what an APC is in case some 'defence analyst' would like to compare it again with the M1 Main Battle Tank.

Troop carrier: Najib being briefed on the capability of the armoured personnel carrier during his visit to the FNSS plant in Ankara. — Bernama

ANKARA: Malaysia is set to produce armoured personnel carriers (APC) for the Asia-Pacific region. The country plans to buy 257 units of armoured carrier frames from the FNSS Defence System plant here and assemble components sourced from various countries. Deftech Malaysia and FNSS Turkey signed a letter of agreement for the purchase of the main body frame of the armoured carrier here yesterday.

An APC is an armoured fighting vehicle designed to transport infantry to the battlefield. APCs are usually armed with only a machine gun although variants carry recoilless rifles, anti-tank guided missiles or mortars. They are usually not designed to take part in a direct-fire battle.

Speaking to reporters after the signing, Zahid said the carriers would be assembled at the Deftech plant in Pekan, Pahang. FNSS is willing to accord Deftech its intellectual property rights that also allows it to export the assembled products to the Asia-Pacific region. “We have an understanding that we can source the defence fittings from elsewhere,” said Zahid, adding that Malaysia plans to mix-and-match various technologies.

Najib later laid a wreath at the Anitkabir mausoleum as a mark of respect for Turkey’s founder and first president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Najib also had a closed-door meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyib Erdogan.

The two leaders later witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Small and Medium Enterprises Corpo­ration Malaysia (SME Corp) and Turkey’s Small and Medium Industry Organisation (KOSGEB). SME Corp CEO Datuk Hafsah Hashim and KOSGEB president Mustafa Kaplan signed the MoU.

Monday, February 21, 2011

One of my younger forum mates was saying that he overheard his father's army mates reminiscing their days as the Super Energa squad. The forumer could not identify the weapon until we helped him out and identified it as the HEAT-RFL-75 Super Energa grenadeand the wow factor kicked in. Even the older forumers like me always thought the start of the man-portable recoilless rocket antitank weapon era in the Malaysian Armed Forces was with the Carl Gustav as the pioneering weapon in the inventory. Further discussions revealed that such anti tank teams may have already been in place since the sixties, long before any visible threats with tanks became a reality in the region. That would be a credible evidence that our nation truly has a professional armed forces with the foresight to identify true threats to the nations. even when others may not As such the shoddy treatment they seem to be getting from certain quarters through no fault of theirs is truly non deserving to our men.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Slowly our Navy's Strike Flotilla are being beefed up at a reasonable cost despite what some may claim, and we can look forward to a credible force that can give anyone a bloody nose if they so dare threaten our independence. KD Kasturi is expected to be ready in October 2012 while KD Lekir will start her SLEP in August 2011.

Bernama - Tuesday, February 15LUMUT, Feb 14 — The Service Life Extension Programme or SLEP for Royal Malaysian Navy ships is expected to reduce defence spending sharply.

Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that SLEP — which was for refurbishing ships of 30 years old or more and equipping them with sophisticated armament and other systems — could save the government a lot of money.

“The programme can reduce spending by up to 75 per cent if we do not have to buy new ships to replace existing assets,” he told reporters here today after observing refurbishing work on KD Kasturi.

SLEP was being carried out by Boustead Naval Shipyard Sdn Bhd, whose bid was 50 per cent lower than the next lowest, he said.

For a start, Ahmad Zahid said, two ships — KD Kasturi and KD Lekir — were being refurbished at a cost of about RM695 million.

“What makes us so proud about this programme is that it is using up to 99.5 per cent local expertise... and the level of local expertise and quality of service are on par with what is offered at foreign shipyards,” he said.

Note : Can't find the English version on Bernama site, but the Malay version is more informative anyway.

LUMUT: Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is willing to be investigated if there are indeed elements of fraud and corruption in the Government’s decision to procure six Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) at RM6bil.

He would also provide a complete explanation in the next Parliament sitting to justify the purchase.

Dr Ahmad Zahid said opposition MP Tony Pua should come forward and provide evidence to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to allow investigations to be carried out on the matter.

“What is he so afraid of? Please give whatever evidence (you have) to the MACC.

“I’m ready to be investigated. My officers are also ready to be investigated if there are irregularities in the procurements,” he told reporters after a visit to the Boustead Naval Dockyard here yesterday.

He was responding to Pua’s allegation on Feb 8 that the Government was buying the six ships at a cost of 870% more than what other countries had paid for similar ships.

Dr Ahmad Zahid said the allegation made by the DAP MP was politically motivated.

“We can differ in our opinions but do not spin about the country’s defence and security needs,” he added.

It was reported that the MACC was waiting for Pua to come forward with facts to support his allegations so an investigation can be carried out.

However, the DAP national publicity secretary said filing a report with the commission would be irrelevant as he merely wanted the minister to justify the purchase.

LUMUT: Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is willing to be investigated if there are indeed elements of fraud and corruption in the Government's decision to procure six Second Generation Patrol Vessel-Littoral Combat Ships (SGPV-LCS) at a cost of RM6bil.

He said opposition MP Tony Pua should come forward and provide evidence to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to allow the commission carry out an investigation on the matter.

"What is he so afraid of? Please give whatever evidence (you have) to the MACC."

"I'm ready to be investigated, my officers are also ready to be investigated if there are any irregularities in the procurement," he told reporters after a working visit to the Boustead Naval Dockyard here on Monday.

Dr Ahmad Zahid said he would provide a full answer in the next Parliament sitting about Pua's allegation that the Government was buying the six SGPV-LCS at a cost 870% more than that paid by other countries for similar ships.

He said the allegation made by the DAP MP was politically motivated.

"I would like to remind the DAP and other opposition parties not to politicise the country's defence and security."

"We can differ in our opinion but do not ‘spin’ the country's defence and security," he said.

Bernama had quoted a MACC source as saying that the commission was waiting for Pua to come forward with facts to support his allegations so an investigation could be carried out.

However, the DAP national publicity secretary said filling a report with the commission would be irrelevant as he merely wanted the Minister to justify the purchase.

A defence analyst with Asian Defence Journal was recently reported as defending the Government by saying that the figure of RM6bil was a standard ballpark figure in the naval ship building industry.

The analyst added that the high cost of procuring the six SGPV-LCS was rational, taking into consideration the capability and sophistication of the ships.

Regarding the brouhaha surrounding the current proposed SGPV/LCS project, I would like to give a historical perspective on similar allegations made against such naval projects. The opposition's Major Domo Mr Lim Kit Siang has made similar allegations from at least the 1970s and in fact in a well documented case broke the law and suffered the penalty when he became a political martyr(to the opposition) when he went to the extend of revealing national secrets on the Spica-M or Handalan class fast attack project. Read up on his expose as referred here. Notice anything like similar script being repeated in the various other allegations after that and even now.

The most pertinent fact that I would like to highlight is this statement "as I have decided to such a meeting with the Prime Minister on this." clearly shows that despite claims of Non-transparency they feel comfortable that they would be able to obtain clarifications on such matters from the Government and that it would not be swept under the carpet.

And the most important fact is that despite all the allegations thrown against the Handalan class and its brethren, they have now served for more than 30 years and the rest for a decade at least as the backbone of the Malaysian Navy defence of the nation. Only the Ex Sri Inderapura bought second hand from the United States under the financial stewardship of then UMNO Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has led a checkered life ending in tragedy. Why until now no further investigation is requested into why the ship was bought second hand then after it was revealed that the primary decision maker was the gifted one.

Thus it seems to those who has not learned that the phrase “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” is apt for them. Maybe they also want to become political martyrs like their major domo and thus keep repeating this stale piece of history. However history also serves to give a rational perspective to what is current and what is possible in the future. Maybe that is why the gifted one eliminated History as a compulsory lesson when he was the Education Minister and why they are so afraid that History will now be made compulsory. A leader looks at the present but a great leader looks at the past so that he can look at the present and the future. I will not be surprised if more similar allegations are made as long as our Navy ships continue their service with honour.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Well the first one admitted his ignorance, so they had to bring out their own defence analyst. So is this still an act of requesting for information, or are they still trying to make fantastic allegations but now supposedly from an expert's mouth? If its the latter make the MACC reportla, don't be so shy! Darn I wish I have their gazing ball, can do more than gazing at navels la, pun fully intended! Especially now too lazy to do more research to counter, especially since these are allegations of things that may happen in the future. How to do that? Again I believe the readers can differentiate the facts if and when they come across the new allegations.

Alas all is not lost as still I learn sumtin new. You can say BS in a nice way by putting it as Taurus Turdu. Must have so much of it that they know such a term.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Sophisticated machine: A concept model of an SGPV displayed by Boustead at Lima 2009. Defence analysts say the high cost in procuring the six ships was rational.— Photo courtesy of Dzirhan Mahadzir from The Star article

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 12 (Bernama) -- DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua will not file a report to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commision (MACC) over the defence ministry's purchase of six offshore petrol vessels (OPV). He said this was because his article on the issue which was posted in his blog recently, only wanted the minister, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, to justify the RM6 billion purchase. "My statement did not accuse the ministry over the purchase but requested the ministry to justify its purchase by giving detailed specifications on the type of OPVs which was being acquired," he said in a statement Saturday. Hence, the Petaling Jaya Utara member of parliament said, the MACC call to him to file a report with the commission over the issue was irrelevant at this point in time. On Friday, MACC sources were quoted by Bernama as saying that the commission required a report from Pua before commencing any investigation into the purchase. Recently, Ahmad Zahid announced the order for six units of offshore patrol vessels for RM6 billion from Boustead Naval Shipyard Sdn Bhd. -- BERNAMA

Again I trust my readers can make your own rational judgement on this overblown issue. I shall now put the matter to rest, thanks for reading!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Put on the defensive, Mr Pua admits his lack of knowledge military and therefore I can safely say that he would have just been shooting in the dark with his previous comment but tries to spin out by now demanding the Navy or Government to reveal the SGPV design/details. To those who don't believe me, read it here while I paste the specific paragraph here.

"Pua today admitted to a lack of military knowledge and said he was eager to meet the navy chief for a briefing."

Well since you admit your ignorance, let me try to add to your knowledge.

First, buying a warship is not like buying a car out of a showroom or whatever out of a brochure. Tick your requirrements and what you want will be delivered the next day or next month. Buying a warship is an engineering project and as in developing any engineering project, a design will be developed and negotiated until final agreement is achieved. How long this takes, depends on the urgency and the budget may be revised based on the final agreement. A LOI if you still plead ignorance of its nature but this would surprise me since you are supposed to be a businessman, is just a letter given to a potential supplier to indicate your INTENT to start negotiating on the project. Both parties can still walk away from the negotiations if agreement is not achievement. However, if agreement is achieved, then a Letter of Award would be given as all the design and specifications would be have been agreed to. My tip to you; at this stage if its achieved, then you can start asking for facts and criticise to your heart content. Otherwise be patient.

Second, you are demanding all these details to be made public. Nonetheless there is one little detail, no country reveals all its defence secret and I dare you to name one. The public will only be shown snippets but you as a member of the Government by being a Member of Parliament, you can request for such briefing. Nonetheless such information would be given to you are under Parliamentary privelege so don't go revealing it to the public. Remember of a small detail of Secrecy Oath you took when entering the August Chambers eh.

Your statement in Malay is quite revealing " Betulkah pengkritik tidak adil kerana tidak membandingkan produk yang sama dan bagaimanakah hendak ditentukan dakwaan ini salah semcama membanding apel dan oren, sekiranya specifikasi tidak didedahkan pihak TLDM?" It seems despite your acknowledgement of your lack of knowledge in this matter, you still want to spin yourself out of this 'mistake'. I would advise you in military terms that if you want to spin, make sure that the deck is sufficiently far away and there are no obstacles in the way, or make sure you have a parachute ready.

I trust those who read up on the referenced article and press statement can make their own rational judgement. Cheers!

He said the ships, which would be built locally by Boustead Naval Shipyard in collaboration with six reputable overseas shipyards, had better capability than the Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) RMN was currently using.

"The cost covers the overall cost of building the LCS including the aspects of sophisticated weaponry, sensing and radar equipment that have very high capability and also sonar to detect enemy submarines.

"The national defence industry is growing and depends a lot on foreign expertise and this is the main reason why the LCS cost so much," he told a press conference at his office at the Ministry of Defence here Wednesday.

He was responding to comments by Tony Pua, the Member of Parliament for Petaling Jaya Utara, which were carried in the Malaysiakini news portal that the six ships cost 870 per cent more compared to purchases of the same by other countries.

Abdul Aziz said Pua's remarks were off the mark as most nations would not reveal details on their military assets.

"It could also be that the costs abroad are much lower because the countries concerned have established defence industries and local expertise in ship maintenance and installing weapons and sensing systems.

"The costs forwarded (by Pua) also do not give a true picture of the overall cost, for example certain countries do not include the cost of GFE (Government-furnished equipment)," he said.

He added that Pua's claim that the New Zealand navy bought OPVs for just New Zealand Dollar (NZD) 90 million (RM211 million) each was also not correct as based on the ministry's findings, this and the cost of purchasing LCS by that country had yet to be finalised and that the amount stated (NZD90 million) was the price before 2004.

He also said that Pua's claim that the United States navy procured LCS at much lower prices was baseless as the MP did not have in depth knowledge on the matter.

Abdul Aziz further said that the procurement of the ships was done through the open tender process which would involve 60 per cent of the material to be sourced locally and would stretch over two Malaysia Plans, the 10th and 11th, a period over 10 years (up to 2020).

He said RMN badly needed the LCS as they had surface and undersea capability unlike the OPVs which had limited capability.

Furthermore, LCS are equipped with sophisticated defence systems like command and control, electronic warfare, various modes of engine control, three-dimensional radar, sea and air missile systems and anti-submarine torpedo capability, he said.

Other countries enlisting the use of LCS currently include the United States and England.

It seems that you have gone to town alleging that the Government announced RM6 billion budget to purchase six units of Second Generation Patrol Vessel aka Litoral Combatant Ship (LCS) is 870 percent over so-called similar purchases as touted in this Malaysiakini article.

To support your claims, you have tried to pull the wool over the Rakyat by giving the comparative purchase prices for these vessels as below, as I beg to differ :

Firstly please pay close attention to the nomenclature of your referred ships. Both these ship classes originates from the Mauritian Vigilant Class OPV launched in 1995, with the Roisin class launched in 1999 and the Protector in 2006 but only accepted in 2010 by the New Zealand Navy as they did not meet their specifications.

On a base level, these ships are 80 meters and 86 meters gunboats respectively with no modular capabilities and can and will only be armed with one 76 mm main guns and supporting machine guns while the Kiwi ships only 25mm main gun, thus their function purely as patrol gunboats. Please keep this in mind. The cost of the Roisin is 20 million pounds in 2000 while the cost of the New Zealand Dollars 90 million per ship for the Protectors is not finalized as per the NZ Ministry of Defence own web posting. Thus the price may actually be more than stated.

These vessels are classed as Fast Attack Craft as they are indeed only 62 meters long and fully laden 580 tons and the equivalent in the RMN fleet would be the Laksamana class. Nonetheless as they are well armed, they are also termed as small corvettes and in military terms should not be compared to a gunboat. Nonetheless as I will clarify later, this vessel can be a good comparison to the proposed SGPV project. Reuters reported in 2008 that the cost for additional two vessels cost the Hellenic Navy Euro 299 million while Janes reported the initial price for the first three units was Sterling Pound 200 million in 2000.

The K130 class is a 90 metre corvette that was delivered in 2010 for the last unit. It has a displacement of 1900 tons and is a well armed ship that would be comparable to our Kedah class once these are upgraded to its full modular FFNW capabilities, as they share the same MEKO geneology. Mind you that Jane’s announced the contract price in 2000 for the five K130 was DM1.9 or US$925 million equivalent at that time, and this contradicts the price of US$108 million each given by Mr Tony Pua In addition the development cost of this project was supposedly distributed amongst other shipbuilding projects like the F124 frigates being built by the same consortium at the same time.

These are 86 meter 1300 tons vessels with the last unit delivered in 1994 with the sticker price of USD260 million each. However what Mr Tony Pua neglected to highlight that a 2009 proposal by Northrop Grumman to supply an expanded version of Saar 5 corvettes was rejected as the cost would have been USD450 million each. The Israeli procurement also serves as a good guide for the export price of the USN LCS which Mr Tony Pua claims as being built at a cost of less than US300 million in 2004 but would have cost US darling Israel a whopping USD600 million after integration with Israeli systems while the ship itself would have cost USD480 million per vessel when the Israelis could only afford USD300 million each.

All the above facts I have reference to reputable defence sites like Jane’s and Naval Technology and well documented These ships are being offered as procurement price comparisons to the announced 102 meter long and 2300 tons SGPV/LCS. The problem I have with such simple comparisons are as follows :

a. These ships are smaller corvettes or gunboats as compared to the proposed fully armed and equipped SGPV/LCS. Even the comparable LCS from the United States cost more than the SGPV/LCS. Only on this factor alone can I beg to differ on Mr Tony Pua’s assessment.

b. The price given as comparison are either inaccurate as per the K130 figures or the vintage is at least a decade old without giving due consideration for inflation as demonstrated by the latest price proposal for the upgraded SAAR V.

c. In addition, it was not highlighted the vintage of the designs compared which are also based on a decade old design base. Even though the final design for the SGPV has not been announced yet, we can surely expect that this will be based on the latest technologies.

I am sure Mr Tony Pua and those hard core supporters will not accept the reasons given above to invalidate Mr Tony Pua’s claims, when even now they still believe we bought second hand submarines that cannot dive when all evidence points to the contrary. Nonetheless I hope those who read this can at least make your own judgement rationally and at the very least, make more investigation into the claims rather than accepting it at face value.

Monday, February 7, 2011

It is rare for me to highlight a foreign blogger's post on Malaysian defence matters but this one I feel deserve the mention, as to me sometimes to see an unbiased review of the Malaysian Armed Forces should give fair insight to their capabilities, especially within the concept of HANRUH.

The complexity of the operation is clearly defined as follows, despite some of the laymen's and ignoramus belief that it is so easy to evacuate our nationals out of Egypt;

Ops Pyramid demonstrates the ability of Malaysian authorities to rapidly plan, mobilise and deploy civil-military resources for a national effort, at short notice, with no rehearsal and at long range.

That the operation is taking place five time zones, some 7,400 km from its main support area in Kuala Lumpur and demands that flight schedules tie in with Malaysian Armed Forces (Angkatan Tentera Malaysia; ATM) ground support elements in Egypt illustrates the complexity of Ops Pyramid.

Speculation has been rifed amongst military forumers that the new LCS/SGPV will abandon the Meko platform and instead a DCNS Gowind derivative will be the base for this new vessel class due to statements that DCNS will assist in validating the new design. Yet when the Malaysian Defence Minister announced a Ringgit Malaysia 6 Billion allocation for the project after a briefing on the project by the designated builder, the model he was shown in a photo-op below is of the previously shown Stretched Meko platform marketed as a frigate by BNS previously. So what should be made of this eh?

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2 (Bernama) -- Three C-130 transport aircraft belonging to the Malaysian Royal Air Force will leave for Egypt around noon today in a mission to bring home Malaysian students from the troubled country.

National Security Council secretary Datuk Mohamed Thajudeen Abdul Wahab said the aircraft would also bring along foodstuff.

"At noon today, the aircraft will take off from Kuala Lumpur. They are taking with them food supply such as rice, cooking oil, flour, canned food and so on," he told Bernama when contacted.

He added that the government was now arranging temporary visas with the Saudi Arabian government to enable evacuation of students to Jeddah.

"Their number is huge so we are bringing them to Jeddah first," he said.

Last night, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak ordered the evacuation of Malaysian students due to the mounting uprising in Egypt.

Najib said the decision was made following a report by a team of Malaysian officials who is currently on a fact-finding mission to Egypt headed by Deputy Foreign Minister A. Kohilan Pillay and participated by the prime minister's political secretary Datuk Sahlan Ismail.

There are about 11,300 Malaysian students registered with the Malaysian Embassy in Egypt.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian stage demonstrations across major Egyptians cities in a bid to force President Hosni Mubarak to end his 30-year rule, plunging the country in its worst crisis in recent times.

Usually we hear nonsense from some on why we need to have a standing Armed Forces when we supposedly face no threats. Well this time I want to show how the Armed Forces are useful when our nation faces another type of threat.

Kredit for All Photos RMAF/Standupper at mymil.forums2u.com

So please don't talk out of your arses when the Armed Forces wants to make equipment purchases as these are usually dual use that can bring benefits to the Rakyat even during peacetime.

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